Titan TPBs

[Grand Moff Muffin]

See my post of Dec. 16 in this thread. The paperbacks often have creases on some of the pages at the top near the spine, and many are damaged. This was true even buying them off the shelf. If you have an End of the Road with no creases near the inner margin at the tops of pages I'll be well impressed.

Martin

[The Doctor]

Amazon refunded the cost of the wonky Maximum Force copies so fingers crossed for third time lucky.

Picked up Last Stand in a moment of frenzied possible employment hope for four earth pounds from amazon marketplace and re-appraised the stories within. I wanted to say they've grown with age or I found hidden gems I missed, but no. Sadly, Uncle Bob's last stories are as dire as most folk say. The best (and I use that term advisedly) is 'Man in the Machine' in that it's readable and the idea of Max and Spike being strangely connected in some spooky way was a decent idea, albeit not explored in any depth.

The Mecannibals are a great design and a fun idea, but the story surrounding them is flat and dull (the exterior design for Grand Central Station is nice though). And the two micromaster stories are nowhere near as good as the Marvel UK MM intro story (A Small War), which covered much more and was fun and did it in 10 pages rather than 44.

Such a shame. Uncle Bob was arguably the best thing to happen to The Transformers but his last stories are best forgotten.

Ironically, Last Stand has the best extra features of the Titan trades, just about justifying the price it goes for now: gallery of art for the hardcover and interesting notes and art from Uncle Bob. The description of the Creation Matrix is intriguing as is the premise for the AM story that never featured in comics but seems to be what was eventually used for the toy packaging.

-Ralph

[charlesrocketboy]

What's the description and premise?

[The Doctor]

Er, it's in the book and I can't be arsed typing it all out, sorry. Long story short: Creation Matrix is a computer programme, AM story involves black holes and stuff.

-Ralph

[charlesrocketboy]

Never mind, found it on Wiki:

The original concept of Nucleon was conceived under the title Transformers: New Generation by Bob Budiansky, the original author of Marvel Comics' Transformers series. The original storyline for Nucleon was this:

A group of Autobots, led by Optimus Prime, left Cybertron to search for new sources of energy, as Energon reserves were being drained. This group eventually came across a form of energy that had been compressed into chunks of matter after going through a black hole— Nucleon. A single piece of it would be able to power a Transformer for an entire year.

Desperate for a new energy source to avoid total deactivation, the Autobots immediately consume the Nucleon. This results in a complete power surge, although consuming the fuel has also brought several side effects: the Autobots delicate transformation circuitry fuses together, storing the Nucleon itself while leaving the Autobots unable to transform at all.

Optimus Prime, unable to accept the loss of the Autobots transformation capabilities, arranges for the construction of transforming droids and vehicles for the Autobots, some which can be piloted and some which are sentient. The Decepticons are easily defeated by the enhanced Autobots, forcing the Decepticons, led by Megatron, to raid a Nucleon storage facility and ingest the fuel themselves, repeating the current events and resulting in the construction of vehicles and droids for the Decepticons as well.

Also:

Of the Dinobots, only Snarl would have actually become a non-transforming Action Master, as he was the only other Dinobot released in the toyline besides Grimlock. Working out of the concept that Nucleon did not affect all mechanoids the same way, Furman had assorted undivulged fates planned for various other Transformers that were not rendered as Action Masters in the toyline, including something particularly gruesome for Slag

[The Doctor]

Well, the third copy of Maxium Force was bent in half by an over-eager postie and has a big crease on the back. I can't be arsed ordering a fourth copy of this so it will have to do. I shall bury it under a pile of books for a week to straighten it out. Then shall the joy of Floppy Prime be mine again.

Oh, and my copy of Treason from amazon was water damaged too. FFS.


-Ralph

[Deleted]

I think somebody has got it in for you. Somebody obviously doesn't want you to own any decent copies of the TPB's. Next time the postie comes round have a good look at him and see if he resembles Pat Lee.